


trust, love

by Mysanthropist



Series: Breathe [3]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Character Study, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Angst, Pre-Relationship, spoilers through V7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:42:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23059444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mysanthropist/pseuds/Mysanthropist
Summary: Conversations in the aftermath.// Set at the end of the V7 finale
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long, Jaune Arc & Penny Polendina, Lie Ren/Nora Valkyrie, Ruby Rose/Weiss Schnee
Series: Breathe [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1666198
Comments: 14
Kudos: 169





	trust, love

Maria makes the decision to land once Pietro confirms no Atlas troops followed. The bullhead hugs the wall of a snowy cliff, a good a spot as any out in the middle of the tundra. 

“Listen kids, we have a limited amount of fuel. We need a plan before we go flying off into the sunset.” She eyes Weiss, gazing distantly out the window towards Atlas and Ren, slumped on the ground. If Maria hadn’t seen him wipe the tears from his eyes ten minutes ago, she might have guessed he was unconscious. Or dead. The other members of his team appear similarly despondent. Team RWBY looks no better. Yang paces under Blake’s concerned gaze and Ruby’s eyes keep darting between Weiss and Penny, Crescent Rose clutched tightly in her hands. Maria can’t remember a time when it was so quiet between them all. It terrifies her more than most Grimm. 

“Maria is right,” Pietro agrees. “Move any further away and I won’t be able to pick up what’s going on over the CCT. We still need to figure out what happened to Qrow and Oscar.” Maria offers him a half smile, grateful, for once to have at least one other competent adult around. Qrow, for all his talent, still lacked in the planning and general, functioning adult department. The drinking and brooding certainly didn’t help. 

“So what, we just sit here and wait to get caught?” Yang says, pausing her pacing to eye them wearily. She refuses to sit down. First, anxious over team JNR and then, fussing over her sister and Weiss until it was clear that they were both, physically, fine. Maria admires her relentless energy. She likes to think she had that fire that back in her Grimm Reaper days (likes to pretend that part of her still exists, buried under years of cynicism and spite). 

“I can scout and make sure we aren’t being pursued,” Penny offers. Ruby nearly leaps from her seat.

“Penny, are you sure? It could be dangerous and now that you have the Winter Maiden powers…”

“I’ll be even stronger!” Penny salutes. Then, looking slightly admonished, she continues, “I think. I have yet to fully grasp the powers I received. Or ensured that they don’t interfere with my normal operating functions.” She frowns, trailing off. “Or understand them at all.” 

Maria catches Pietro’s frown from the corner of her eye. She still barely grasps maidens and relics despite the weeks she had to take it all in; she can only imagine how Pietro feels about all the information dumped on him in the last half hour. The man is smart, no doubt, but intelligence makes believing fairy tales all the harder. Then again, Penny’s mere existence spoke volumes about his capacity for the unbelievable. 

“I’ll go with you,” Ruby says. Penny smiles gratefully and Ruby beams back. Maria thought it would grate on her, Ruby’s seemingly infinite capacity for hope, but something about the girl’s genuine tenacity warms her in earnest. Or, Maria thinks dully, maybe her old age finally wore her down, too tired to be properly pessimistic. 

“We will go with you,” Weiss amends, also rising in one graceful motion. Ruby glances at her and the smile on her face tightens. 

“Are you sure? Winter -” Her next words are silenced by a glare from Weiss. 

“Just because Winter was hurt doesn’t mean that I’m not capable of fighting,” Weiss says sharply. Blake and Yang both tense. Penny opens her mouth, perhaps to intervene, before thinking better of it and staying silent. 

“Weiss, you know that’s not what I meant. It’s just, you shouldn’t push yourself if you’re not feeling OK.” Ruby brings up her arms in a placating gesture, but that only seems to annoy Weiss further.

“I’m fine,” she snaps and then marches towards the door without another glance. “Let’s go.” A true Schnee, Maria thinks. Penny glances at Ruby who makes a sound halfway between a groan and sigh, muttering “not fine” before following her partner. 

“Just like Beacon,” Blake murmurs, sharing a grimace with Yang.

“We’ll contact you over the scrolls when we get news,” Pietro says to Penny as she hurries after Weiss and Ruby. “Stay safe.”

Yang moves to follow, but Jaune intervenes before she reaches the door. 

“I think I should go with them.” He says wearily, already bracing himself for the protest. 

“You? Sorry,” Yang cringes at the incredulity in her own voice, but Jaune waves off the apology. “I mean, no offense Jaune, but if anyone, Blake and I should go with them. Ruby and Weiss are our teammates.”

“With Penny flying and Ruby wandering around in a bright red cloak, they’re not exactly subtle. Adding two more people to that is just asking to be caught. Especially, when you’re well,” he gestures at them nervously, quickly bringing the hand to the back of his head when Yang bristles. 

“He has a point,” Blake says, drawing Yang’s attention to her with a hand on her mechanical arm. They share a small smile. Silently, Maria agrees. He certainly doesn’t look it, but the boy has a decent head on his shoulders. Yang sighs and nods, clearly still annoyed, but restrained. Nora offers Jaune a thumbs up. 

“Well, guess I’m out then.” Barely a beat passes after Jaune’s departure when Ren suddenly stands, nearly bowling over Nora in his haste to exit.

“I need to get some air.” Nora blinks once, in shock, before hurrying after without so much as a goodbye. 

“Well,” Maria mutters, eyeing Blake and Yang who both stare at the open door in surprise. “Don’t tell me you two are about to go wandering off after we just agreed that sending you out all at once is asking to be caught.”

“We won’t go far,” Blake assures before tugging Yang out the door, hand in hand. Maria sighs. 

“Kids,” Pietro says, voice tinged with equal fondness and melancholy.

“Huntsman,” Maria corrects. “After all they’ve been through, I don’t think we can call them kids anymore.”

* * *

“So, where are we going?” Yang asks after an eternity of silence. The adrenaline pumping in her veins makes the stillness of the tundra feel unbearably slow. 

“Nowhere really, I just wanted to talk in private. And,” Blake adds, suddenly shy, “you looked restless. I thought you might want some space and fresh air.” In another life, Yang might have joked about that, something stupid about Blake not needing to work so hard to get them alone together, so much easier to joke about these things than face the possibility of them being real. She swallows the urge. Blake looks serious, her eyes distantly scanning the horizon where Yang can barely make out a green speck in the air and the red of Ruby’s cloak, stark against the snow.

She hates that sometimes the best way to keep people safe is to stay apart. 

Yang squeezes Blake’s hand once, grounding herself in the sensation before her thoughts can spiral. Blake returns the gesture, running a gentle thumb across her knuckles. _Breathe._

“Okay, what did you want to talk about?” Blake sighs. Yang is all too familiar with the dark look in her eyes. This is the Blake who tormented herself while Torchwick plotted with the White Fang, the Blake who struggled to trust her after Mercury. 

“Yang, what are we doing?” 

“Chilling on the tundra?” Blake chokes out a laugh, more incredulous than amused. Nonetheless, the thought that even now, on the brink of disaster, Blake still laughs at her stupid jokes brings Yang immeasurable comfort. 

“Yang,” Blake says more forcefully, schooling her face back into something more serious. She looks Yang directly in the eyes, dropping their conjoined hands in favor of wrapping her arm around her stomach. Yang tries not to notice.

“I know, I know,” Yang relents, letting her gaze sweep over the indistinct outline of Atlas, looming like the fading images of a nightmare she never quite woke up from. It feels like Beacon. Confusion, uncertainty, a free fall from safety with no one to catch her. _That’s why you need to be strong,_ Yang thinks in her worst moments _, so you can save yourself._

She chances a glance at Blake, still solemn but also searching. Yang knows this look, too, the unguarded plea in her eyes. This is the look of Ruby at 5, slipping into Yang’s bed at night, asking for her mother, just wanting someone to tell her that everything would be alright. _Soon,_ Yang would lie, clutching her sister’s small, fragile body to her own. Then soon stretched into forever and one day, Ruby stopped asking. From that day on, Yang watched Ruby grow up and never stop, relying on her a little less with each passing moment. Funny, how Ruby clung so hard to her at Beacon when the Yang always needed her more. 

Yang is so tired of all the secrets and lies, between Ozpin and Ironwood and Raven and Summer, so she tells Blake what she never told Ruby all those years ago. 

“I don’t know.” Blake draws herself inward and Yang resists the temptation to take it all back and just tell Blake what she so desperately wants to hear. No more lies. 

“Do you think we were right to tell Robyn?” 

“Yes.”

“Do you think we were right to fight the Ace-Ops?”

“Yes.”

“Do you think we were right to keep everything from Ironwood in the beginning?” 

Yes, Yang wants to say. Yes, because I trust Ruby and I will follow her to the ends of Remnant. Yes, she tries to say. But all she thinks about is the way Ironwood unraveled, that one last betrayal of trust too much to bear. She thinks of the way Ruby crumbled in her arms. She thinks of Summer and the life she never got to live, the people she left behind. 

Her eyes drift back in the direction she last saw Ruby, already lost against a backdrop of white. Blake follows her gaze. Yang wonders if she can still see Ruby. Blake is good at seeing things that others miss. Sometimes, she also sees things which don’t exist, figments of the dark from a lifetime of operating in the shadows. Yang wonders, not for the first time, what Blake saw in her in the Emerald Forest.

“Honestly? The way everything turned out, maybe it would have been better if we were up front with him from the start. He still probably would have snapped eventually, but he might have listened to us in the end instead of immediately treating us like traitors. Maybe the Ace-Ops would have heard us out.” Yang huffs, wishing that this really was Beacon again and the only things she had to worry about were making it through a Port lecture without falling asleep and the occasional hammer to the face from Nora. 

“Do _you_ think we should have told him?” Yang presses when Blake says nothing. She frowns, contemplative.

“I think Ironwood’s heart is in the right place,” Blake begins carefully. “I think he tried to do the right thing, but he refused to listen to anyone else. Even if we told him, I don’t think anything changes. Maybe he would have abandoned Mantle even sooner and left even more people to die.”

“Maybe,” Yang mumbles, not quite ready to believe that none of their decisions makes a difference. “Or maybe giving him all the info about Salem would have helped. He was a general and a council member. Maybe he could have used all that to come up with a better plan if he had more time.”

“He wouldn’t have,” Blakes says, sharp. The hand on her stomach tightens. “People like him are so fixated on doing what they think is right without thinking about the consequences for everybody else.”

Her eyes blaze with an intensity that Yang recognizes. “Blake, is this – “

“All he cared about were _his_ plans, _his_ goals. The people in Mantle meant _nothing_ to him. He was willing to sacrifice them like pawns, like he had a right to decide whether their lives were worth saving or not. Who was he to decide?”

“Blake,” Yang interjects again, grasping Blake’s trembling hand with her human one. “We had to kill Adam. He was trying to _murder_ you, and nothing was going to stop him if we didn’t. He didn’t give us a choice.”

“That’s the point, Yang. What happens if next time it’s not just Adam? What happens if it’s two people, or a child, or an entire city. What happens if we don’t have a choice then? What makes us any different from Ironwood?” She sniffs, looking away. “What makes me any different than Adam _?”_

And there it is, Yang thinks as Blake wipes away a tear with her free hand, Blake wanting so desperately to do the right thing that she might destroy herself in the process. 

“Ironwood did have a choice. You said it, he could have stood his ground and defended Mantle. Ironwood tried to run because he was scared,” Blake’s breath hitches, but Yang presses on, “We wanted to protect people.”

“I’m sure he would say the same thing.” The anger in Blake’s voice ebbs into quiet desperation. “I know all about running because you think it’s the only way to protect people.”

“You came back.” Yang says, tightening her grip on Blake’s hand. The words sound less confident than she intends, blunted by that ever present fear which refuses to relinquish entirely. _No one can hurt you if you don’t let them._ Blake barely seems to hear her. 

“Fear makes people do awful things. You can justify it to yourself in the moment, but all the people you hurt, that never goes away,” she continues quietly. Her feline ears flicker and bend like the rest of her body, still hunched in shame. It does go away, Yang can’t quite bring herself to say. No more lies.

“You came back,” Yang repeats instead, keeping her voice steady. “You left the White Fang. You learned from their mistakes. You faced Adam even when,” her right arm twitches, “even when it must have terrified you.” 

“Yang, I only faced Adam because I didn’t have a choice. I was terrified that he was going to hurt me or you,” her voice catches, “or Weiss or Ruby and I couldn’t let that happen again. It wasn’t – I fought because I was scared. I’m still scared. I’m a cow-”

“Blake,” Yang says, gently reaching to cup Blake’s cheek. She thumbs a stray tear and lingers, letting the warmth of Blake’s skin sooth her prosthetic. Blake leans into the touch even when the rest of her body looks ready to pull away. Yang feels calm, letting the sensation of Blake, _alive_ , beneath her fingertips, lull her. 

“You are not a coward. You forgave Weiss even when she was still being racist and, well, kind of a bitch. You tried to reason with Elm when she was dead set on pummeling us back there. You tried to give Adam a second chance even when he hurt you. Despite all the reasons in the world not to, _you care_ , and I think that makes you the bravest of all.” Blake ducks her head, ears pinned flat like she can’t stand to hear it. Yang thinks she could spend the rest of her life making sure Bake knows it’s true. No more lies.

“People like you make it easy to care.” 

“I’m not easy,” Yang replies, teasing. The tension in her face finally breaks and Blake smiles, lovely and fragile and raw. 

“No, you’re not,” she says, lifting her hand to cover Yang’s and interlacing their fingers in one motion. “Good thing a challenge never scared me.” 

To Yang, that sounds a lot like _I’ll stay._

* * *

_I should have stayed in the bullhead_ , Jaune thinks miserably. He just wanted to be useful after colossally screwing up with the relic, but instead he somehow lost track of Ruby in the middle of nowhere despite the fact that no other living things seem to exist in the vicinty. OK, so maybe he had been _a little_ distracted when he left and maybe he should have remembered to check for his scroll before leaving. Maybe he shouldn’t have come at all.

“Damn it!” Jaune shouts. Even after all _she_ did for him, why is he still so weak? 

“Is everything OK?” 

“Gah!” Jaune jumps, readying Crocea Mors at the offending voice, only to realize that it came from Penny Polendia who somehow managed to land behind without him noticing. Excellent observation skills, Jaune. “Sorry, uh, I’m good. Just a little on edge.”

“Understandable,” Penny nods amicably. 

Jaune re-sheaths his sword, not quite able to meet Penny in the eye. She shifts on her feet, looking equally uncomfortable. 

“So, everything look OK?” Jaune ventures. “No Grimm or Atlas military about to take us down?”

“All clear,” Penny confirms, “It seems the discord in Mantle drew all the surrounding Grimm and General Ironwood hasn’t seen it necessary to send additional reinforcements out looking for us. Yet.”

“That’s good,” Jaune says automatically, then blanches. “I mean, not good for all the people still in Mantle. Or Atlas with Ironwood going insane.” Penny looks down and Jaune fights the urge to punch himself in the face. “Well, not insane, just paranoid. I’m sure that he’s still good ole’, reasonable Ironwood underneath all that…insanity.” Stop talking, Jaune thinks, horrified. 

Fortunately, Penny smiles at him, probably laughing at his babbling. He’ll take it. 

“No, I agree with your first assessment. General Ironwood does seem rather unhinged at the moment, though it feels strange for me to say so,” Penny looks away. “I spent so long following his orders without question, believing that he knew what was best for Atlas, for all of Remnant.” 

“For what it’s worth, I think Ironwood was trying to do the right thing. I think you helped a lot of people in Mantle.”

They lapse into another silence, this time a touch less awkward. Penny doesn’t look at him, her eyes focused on her hands, squeezing and threading together like she’s trying to work out an invisible puzzle.

With a pang, Jaune realizes that her expression reminds him of Pyrrha’s in those last days, burdened and lost. He thinks of the days just after Beacon fell, when his sisters surrounded him with so much love and concern that he could forget, just for a moment, the ghost of Pyrrha’s last goodbye. _I’m sorry,_ he whispers to himself those nights when he remembers. _I’m sorry I wasn’t enough._

“How does it feel?” Jaune asks, a sudden wave of protectiveness overtaking him. Penny looks confused. Jaune clarifies, “Being the Winter Maiden?”

“Not much different,” Penny says, her tone thoughtful, splaying out her hands in front of them like if she turns them just the right way, she’ll see the Winter Maiden at her fingertips. “I certainly don’t feel unstoppable. Even when I was fighting Cinder using the powers, it felt almost…natural.”

“Cinder, she -” Jaune stops abruptly, not certain where he was going with that thought. She’s terrible? She keeps trying to murder me and my friends? She did murder one of my friends? “I’m glad you’re alive. Cinder has a bad streak of killing or almost killing people I care about.”

Penny frowns a little, looking at him with care. Jaune can practically see the gears (is that rude?) turning in her head. And then suddenly, “Ah, that’s right. Pyrrha Nikos was your partner.” Hearing Pyrrha’s name in Penny’s voice nearly makes Jaune weep. He forgets sometimes that Pyrrha Nikos was more than just his partner, more than just one part of team JNPR. She was a star, a beacon and a whole world out there mourned her loss with him. Or maybe they never really cared, too enamored with their own lives to realize what fell with Beacon that day. Sometimes, Jaune selfishly thinks, he single-handedly keeps her memory alive. 

“Yeah, Pyrrha’s partner,” he repeats dully. Then, with sudden clarity, the Vytal festival comes flooding back to him, and with it, the memory of Pyrrha’s last round. “Oh shit, I can’t believe I forgot. I never, um, she would have wanted to...,” Jaune chokes. Even on his best days he sucks at holding conversations and faced with the prospect of now having to pass on what Pyrrha surely would have wanted to say, he panics. He needs to do this justice, needs to do this one thing right for her. Jaune takes a deep breath and tries to calm himself, if only to reassure Penny whose concern is starting to turn into full blown sympathy.

“I apologize for bringing her up so suddenly. I understand her death must have caused you and your team so much pain.”

“What? Oh no, don’t apologize. If anything, I should be the one who’s sorry,” Jaune slides a hand down his face. “After all the time we spent together in Atlas, I never once thought about the fact that…that Pyrrha was the one who killed you back then.”

Penny blinks at him in surprise, like she somehow forgot that she had been torn to shreds in front of the world. 

“Oh! I can assure you that I was completely restored from that incident and there is no lasting damage to my body. There’s no need to apologize.” Penny flashes a winning smile and a thumbs up. It fades quickly. “I only wish I could tell her the same. I’m sure the experience wasn’t pleasant for her.”

“She was devastated,” Jaune agrees, only to regret the words immediately when Penny’s expression droops even further. “Not that it was your fault! You were both clearly set up! Pyrrha never would have wanted to seriously hurt you and she would have been so happy to see you alive. All she cared about was doing her duty to protect people.”

“I didn’t spend much time with her, but from what I can remember she was very noble. And kind,” Penny says gently. Jaune nods, not quite trusting himself to speak anymore. 

“Yeah, Pyrrha was great,” he eventually says. Then, more bitterly, “so great that Ozpin and Ironwood tried to make her the next Fall Maiden.”

“I heard about that from General Ironwood. The original plan was to make her a guardian of sorts, someone the world could look to for inspiration and strength in times of conflict.” 

“Yeah, well it was stupid,” Jaune snipes, unable to help himself. “Placing all that responsibility on a girl who felt like she didn’t have a choice but to be what everyone thought she was? It destroyed her.” 

“You don’t think she wanted the Maiden powers?” 

“I think Pyrrha would have done anything if it meant she could help more people. She thought it was her destiny,” Jaune sighs, thumbing the red cloth beneath his belt. Even after trudging through Mistral, Grimm attacks and the Atlas cold, it still feels soft and comforting to the touch. “She never needed special maiden powers to do it. Just being Pyrrha Nikos was enough.” 

Penny reaches out a hand, not quite touching his own. 

“I think she would be proud to see you taking up that mantle in her stead.” She says it with such certainty that Jaune _does_ cry this time, pressing his face into his shoulder to stem the tears. 

“How could she be proud? Qrow nearly died. Weiss nearly died. Neo took the relic. Mantle could be done for. I couldn’t protect anyone. I failed,” Jaune scrubs at his face harder, trying to avoid looking too closely at the sympathy on Penny’s face. “How can you of all people tell me she would be proud? You were the one helping Mantle every day. You took the maiden’s powers despite all the risks. You left with Ruby and Weiss even knowing it would have been easier just to stay with Ironwood. How can you look at someone like me and tell me that I’m not a failure?”

Penny stares, one hand over her open mouth, the other still hovering halfway between them. The air goes quiet and only then Jaune realizes that he had shouted those last few sentences at her, desperate and jealous all at once. It’s Oscar all over again, but this time he lacks even the flimsy excuse of being betrayed. He’s just angry. 

“Jaune,” Penny starts and then stops. She looks sorry and Jaune hates how she can still look at him like he deserves the pity. Jaune half expects her to just walk or fly away, but Penny doesn’t move, just exhales once, steady.

“The Winter Maiden asked me, in her last breaths if I was the one,” Penny clasps her hands together, looking down at them again, “and I didn’t know what to tell her. I don’t think I wanted these powers. I still don’t know exactly what I want. All I knew was that I had to protect Winter and stop Cinder. ” Then, she looks back up and to Jaune’s surprise, she smiles. “Even though you feel helpless, that’s why you’re still here, right? To stop Salem and protect people.” 

Jaune nods. 

“I think that’s one of the most exceptional things about humans. Even with infinite possibilities before you, you all seem to know what you want. You go to incredible lengths and fight against all odds to bring those wants to fruition. You let your emotions guide you through the impossible.” Penny laughs, bright and full of wonder. “I can be rebuilt, but humans get up and keep going again and again each day in the face of hopelessness. The people of Mantle fought for their future, for their happiness. How could I not defend that? Ruby, Winter, all of you still want to fight and help despite all the terrible things that happened to you, and Jaune, I think that’s _remarkable_.” 

Jaune closes his eyes and thinks of Pyrrha. Their first lesson on the roof together, she swept out his feet from him before he could even blink. _The first lesson,_ she said between giggles as he stared blearily up at her, _is to learn how to take a hit and get back up again._

He opens his eyes and sees Penny before him, still hopeful and here.

Jaune says nothing, a lifetime of catharsis lodged in his throat. Instead, he walks up to Penny and places a hand on her shoulder, hoping she understands all the emotions he can’t convey. The way Penny smiles in return, Jaune thinks she does. 

* * *

Nora spent her entire life around people who thought they had her figured out. Hyperactive, unfocused, a loose cannon. Nora resents that last one the most because she is a perfectly controlled cannon, thank you very much. 

Poor Ren, they would say when they thought she couldn’t hear. It must exhaust him trying to keep her in line all the time. 

She knows what people think about them, that she’s some kind of parasite who latched onto Ren and refuses to let him go. For the most part the rumors never affected her. Who cares what a bunch of randos think of her? It’s always been Ren and Nora, Nora and Ren, and that’s how it will always be regardless of what other people say. But sometimes, in her worst moments, the doubt seeps in. _What if they’re right?_

Those doubts flooded into her thoughts ever since Atlas, when Ren slowly, but surely started to pull away. What if Ren finally realized there was so much more to the world than Nora? What if he fell in love with some nice Atlas girl, polite, quiet and sophisticated? (Weiss, fortunately, was none of those things) What if he just had enough? 

_What if, what if, what if_

Nora loves Ren. It’s been her guiding light, that no matter what she does or who she is, Nora Valkyrie will always love Lie Ren. For a long time, it was enough. But that was before Pyrrha and maidens and the insane, immortal bitch who was apparently set on taking out her post break-up grief on all of humanity. And people said _she_ had anger issues. 

Nora barely remembers a life without Ren. She could never begin to picture a future without him; although that might be more because she generally fails to plan things through at all. How could she begin to now when the better half of her brain refuses to even look at her, let alone talk to her? 

Up ahead, Ren finally begins to slow down. His normally graceful run deteriorates into an uncoordinated jog and then he stops, hunched over with his hands on his knees, heaving so loudly that Nora can hear him over the crunch of snow beneath her feet. 

“Ren!” She says, sliding to a stop a few feet away, scared for the first time in her life to get closer. 

“I’m fine,” Ren gasps, clearly not fine. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Nora wants to scream. She tried patience. She tried action. She tried to respect Ren’s wishes and it led them to this moment, where everything’s gone to shit _again_ and they don’t even have each other to get through it this time. 

“Ren, I want to talk about it. Whatever is going on with you, with us, we need to talk about it.” Ren shudders and for a moment Nora thinks that she pushed too far. Then, he pulls himself up and looks straight at her, eyes pink and swollen. Nora squeezes her fingers into a fist just to keep from reaching out and hugging him. 

“Fine, let’s talk about it.” There’s no fight in his words, just resignation. 

Nora freezes. Of course, she never actually thought to plan for this moment. Talking to Ren was as natural as breathing. No filters, no forethought, just whatever came to mind. Now, she needs to carefully consider her words, like Ren is some stranger she needs to impress and not the boy who watched her make pancakes at 3 am the night before they arrived at Beacon. 

_“What if nobody likes me, Ren?” she wailed._

_Ren shrugged, spearing a bit of pancake onto a fork. “You’ll always have pancakes.”_

_“Not if you keep stealing them,” she gasped, clutching the plate closer to her chest._

_Ren grinned. “I’ll make you more.”_

Maybe talking wasn’t the best idea. Maybe she should just walk up, grab him by the collar and shake him a few times. That always works, right? Maybe she should kiss him again.

“Nora, if you’re not going to talk, then let’s just go back.” 

“I’m thinking! Jeez, the one time in my life I actually want to stop and think things through and you want me to just rush through it like always.” A fear greater than Salem strikes her then. She could actually screw this up; she could ruin them. 

“I don’t want you to rush through anything, but we don’t have any time to waste on -”

“On what? On us? Is that all we are to you? A waste?” Nora shouts, unable to contain herself any longer. Ren flinches, wiping furiously at his eyes again.

“That isn’t what I meant,” he croaks. Nora dares a step forward. When Ren stays rooted in the spot she takes another and then another until she stops just a few inches away. 

“Then tell me what you mean. Please,” she whispers, reaching out a hand. For a moment, Ren just looks at it blankly. This is what kills her, Nora thinks, not lightning, not magic, just the rejection of a man. Then, as Nora begins to retract her arm, Ren reaches out and cradles her hand in his. Nora’s heart soars.

“It was a mistake to think that we could be Huntsmen. We weren’t ready.” He finally says, still not looking at her. 

“Because we lost the relic to Neo?” 

“It wasn’t just Neo. There was Mantle before that, and Cordovin and Lionheart. In all of those situations we got lucky. This time, our luck ran out and we failed.” Nora may not fully understand Ren, especially not now, but she knows what it means when his jaws clench and fists curl. People used to ask Ren to explain Nora’s every whim and thought. Surely, there must be a reason she said something weird or did something crazy. In truth, Nora only ever just speaks her mind, no hidden agenda or subtext that needs interpretation. It was always Ren, the twitch of his lips or the careful tilt of his brow, who contained universes within him. 

“Ren, what are you afraid of?” At this, Ren finally snaps his head back up to look at her. His face is incredulous.

“What am I afraid of? Why aren’t you more afraid? What makes you think we can handle any of this? Pyrrha was the best of us and now she’s dead! I could just easily be next. Or Jaune or team RWBY,” He sobs and the sound tears through Nora like a Beringel’s claws. “What happens if it’s you?”

The tension between them collapses. Nora tastes the saltiness in her tears as they fall unbidden, blindly reaching for Ren with her free hand through her blurred vision. She snags his shirt and Ren releases her other hand only to reach around and cup the back of her neck, pulling her into him. 

“I loved her,” Nora says into his collar. “I love all of them. Even Weiss.” 

“That’s why we can’t risk not being prepared. We can’t lose anyone else,” Ren whispers into her shoulder. 

“We also can’t stand by and do nothing. Not when there are so many people out there we can help.” Ren heaves a sign into her shoulder and nods. 

“My father died protecting people,” he says in a hollow voice, “while I stood by and did nothing.” 

“Ren, you were a _child_.”

“I’m still a child. We are all still children.” Ren pulls back a little and Nora takes the opportunity to loop her arms around his neck, keeping him close. He tips his head back, pressing into her hands, eyes closed. Everything about him looks exhausted. Nora would do anything in that moment to let him rest.

“Ren, you did do _something_ back then. You saved me,” she says, running her hand through Ren’s hair, letting her fingers tangle in the pink strands. “I don’t know what will happen next. Maybe we're way in over our heads, but we only stand a chance of getting through this if we do it together, the same way we always have.” 

“You’re right,” he says quietly.

“I’m always right.” That manages to draw the barest of laughs and Nora beams, snuggling back into Ren. He breathes, steady into her hair.

“Promise me we’ll always be together?” He asks, like it’s even a question. Nora answers the only way she knows how. 

“I do.”

* * *

The first lesson Ruby learned at Beacon is that an angry Weiss Schnee should generally be left alone to simmer down before being approached. The second is that an angry Weiss Schnee is sometimes actually a hurt Weiss Schnee and a hurt Weiss Schnee needs lots of hugs. The third? An angry Weiss Schnee moves _fast_. 

“Weiss!” Ruby calls once more at the retreating figure in front of her. The blue of Weiss’ outfit stands out against the snow even if the rest of her doesn’t which is perhaps the only reason Ruby hasn’t lost Weiss yet. She wants to just use her semblance to catch up, but hesitates, still a bit depleted from her fight with Harriet and the brief encounter with Cinder. Cinder…she’d conveniently glossed over that part of the story to Yang, focusing instead on Penny’s new powers and Winter’s injuries. Luckily, Weiss was too distracted to fully elaborate. Ruby tries not to think too hard about how natural these little omissions are starting to feel. She breathes. Weiss first, emotional crisis later (or never). 

Weiss, for her part, keeps surging forward, undeterred. Ruby half suspects she plans to march straight back into Atlas to drag Winter out with her. Hopefully Penny actually can manage surveillance, because the only immediate danger Ruby can focus on now is an angry Weiss Schnee. 

Sighing, she takes a deep breath and activates her semblance. The world warps around her, nothing but the rush of wind and twisting colors before Ruby slams back into reality just in front of Weiss. Weiss reacts instantly, pulling out Myrtenaster and already halfway into forming a glyph before her eyes relax in recognition.

“Ruby! What are you doing? I could have stabbed you or seriously injured you,” she chastises, lowering her weapon. Ruby grins at the concern.

“I knew you wouldn’t.” Weiss rolls her eyes, the gesture familiar and a touch fond.

“Well?” Weiss says, folding her arms across her chest after she secures Myrtenaster in her belt. 

“Well?” Ruby parrots, and the eye roll this time is decidedly less fond and more of the “Ruby, I will actually stab you” variety. 

“Weiss,” Ruby says more gently, knowing that this isn’t the time to purposefully antagonize her partner. Weiss would probably argue that an appropriate time for that never exists, but they can have that argument at another time. “I know how much you care about Winter and seeing her like that…her telling you to leave must have hurt.”

“Please. I’ll admit that seeing her injured so badly concerned me, but abandoning me for her duties?” Weiss scoffs. “That much I’m used to already.” 

“You think she abandoned you?”

“How else would you describe calling reinforcements on us? Telling us to run?” Weiss snaps. She glares in the direction of Atlas, holding herself in a rigid and untouchable stance. Ruby always admired how much Weiss could accomplish through sheer force of will and stubbornness. She only ever consistently failed at hiding how much she cared. 

“I think,” Ruby says, trying to choose her words carefully. “That was Winter’s way of showing that she cared.” 

“Well, why couldn’t she show that she cares in a _normal_ way and come with us instead of going back to the man who tried to arrest us in the first place? I never wanted her sacrifices or praise or advice. All I ever needed was for her to be there for me.” Weiss looks away, pressing a hand to her face and Ruby surges forward on instinct, reaching one arm around Weiss’ waist to tug her in. It’s both alarming and heartening how quickly Weiss folds against her. 15 year-old Ruby would have cheered at the show of vulnerability, but 17-year-old Ruby knows it comes from a whole life hurting alone.

“Winter loves you,” Ruby murmurs into Weiss’ hair. The scent of sweat and gunpowder still lingers between them. Ruby shivers at the reminder of the danger they just escaped, running her free hand up the tension trapped in Weiss’ back, a spring ready to uncoil. 

“I know. I just wished she loved me more than Atlas,” Weiss sniffs eventually. She pulls away, face dry, the sadness in her eyes already hardening back into something cold. “How typical of me to be so selfish and ungrateful. She’s trying to save the world and here I am crying about her not loving me enough.”

“Weiss, I may not know Winter very well, but I saw how much she loves you. She fights so hard to protect Atlas because she wants to protect you.” Weiss smiles wryly, one hand spinning Myrtenaster’s chambers in a practiced pattern. 

“No, I’m just getting in the way of her duty.” 

“She’s your sister,” Ruby says, increasingly incensed about the quiet acceptance in Weiss’ voice and Winter’s role, however unintended, in it. Weiss, who once pulled an all-nighter to prove that, _No, Ruby, you cannot physically re-engineer Crescent Rose to fire grenades while also maintaining the delicate balance you need to wield it effectively and I will not allow you to slow us down in a fight,_ does not back down from fights that matter to her and nothing matters to her more than her family. “Her duty is to care about you and take care of you.” 

“Ruby,” Weiss starts, her tone reminiscent of the early days in Beacon, when she would lecture Ruby about dust, reciting facts at her like she was incapable of understanding. Ruby hates it. “The fact that you believe that is one of the things I admire most about you, but the real world -”

“Don’t treat me like a child,” Ruby interjects hotly. Weiss reacts instantly, her eyes narrowing automatically in challenge. The hand on her weapon goes still. “I know _,_ OK. I know that we’re not in school anymore and the world isn’t cookies and sunshine. I know that sometimes love isn’t enough. I watched Penny die. I watched Torchwick die. I watched Pyrrha die. My mom left one day and didn’t come back.” The memory of her mother, cape fluttering just out of reach flashes before her and the anger escapes in one shaky exhale. “I get it.”

She looks down, but Weiss, shorter even in heels, meets her gaze easily, reaching out one hand to gently tilt her face back. Ruby closes her eyes and focuses on the comforting sensation of Weiss’ glove on her skin.

“You never really talk about her,” Weiss whispers. Sometimes, Ruby thinks she hates this side of Weiss the most. An angry Weiss is vicious and distant, but Weiss, kind and vulnerable, threatens to pry her open. She can’t afford to break. Ruby needs to hold it together, just a little longer. Always, just a little longer.

“What’s there to say? She’s gone and apparently Salem’s the reason why.” 

“Ruby, I just admitted how much I miss Winter even though I know she’s alive and going to be OK. You can admit that you miss your mom, that it hurts. Missing her doesn’t mean you’re weak.” Ruby tries to look away again, but Weiss keeps their gazes locked. The blue of her eyes so soft Ruby thinks she could float in them. 

“I miss her,” Ruby confesses, helpless against Weiss’ affection. “I miss her so much.”

This time, Weiss hugs her. Ruby doesn’t cry. Exhausted, she lets more of her weight slump against Weiss’ lithe frame. It can’t be easy with Crescent Rose still strapped to her back, but Weiss holds them both upright. 

“I know I’m no replacement for your mom, but I’ll always be here for you.”

“You’re definitely not my mom,” Ruby affirms, grinning when she feels Weiss’ eye roll and the annoyed huff against her collar. 

“Ugh, is this what I get for being nice to you?” Weiss grumbles, making a weak effort to pull away. Ruby tightens her grip around Weiss’ waist and Weiss complies easily, settling back into her arms. “You’re so annoying.” Ruby hones in on the steady sound of her breathing. The whirlwind of the past few hours finally begins to abate and she allows herself to settle into the calm. Just for a moment. 

“I’m sorry I’m not Winter, but I’m here for you, too.” Weiss laughs.

“Well, I’m not sorry that you’re not Winter. I love Winter, but one of her is more than enough.” Weiss does pull away this time, just far enough away that she can look Ruby in the eyes. “All I need is for you to be Ruby.”

“I can do that. I’m good at that,” Ruby says eagerly, ducking a little at the praise. “And uh, just so you know. I don’t need you to be Weiss _Schnee_ either _,_ just Weiss _.”_ Weiss gazes at her thoughtfully.

“I think you’re the only person who ever looked at me and saw just Weiss.” 

“Well, everyone else is missing out then because I think just Weiss is pretty great,” Ruby declares. At this, Weiss looks uncharacteristically shy, a touch of awe glistening in her eyes. Her mouth curves into a small, precious smile that Ruby will hold onto forever. 

Ruby doesn’t understand the Schnees. In fact, her brief exposure to them only solidifies her certainty that Ruby won’t ever understand them. How could she understand people who looked at Weiss and tried to flatten her brilliant soul into somehthing dull and obedient? How hard they worked to make Weiss feel small and alone and inadequate when to do the opposite, to love her and be loved, was so much easier. And maybe that absence made Weiss the person she is today. Maybe it’s the defiance that makes her strong. 

Ruby disagrees.

She refuses to believe in a world which justifies the cynicism of Cinder and Roman Torchwick: let the weak die and the strong survive; every man for himself. Their vision of the world looks like giving up, blinded by the perpetual misery of pessimism because it hurts less than glimmers of hope repeatedly extinguished.

The light still persists.

Ruby saw it in the students at Beacon who trained to put their lives on the line for others. She saw it in Mistral, in the children who lived like kings in beaten down villages, too innocent to comprehend the destruction around them. She saw it in Ironwood’s desperation to protect. She saw it in Pyrrha, defiant in her goodness until the very end. 

Ruby fights for that world where people receive the love they deserve and reciprocate in kind, strongest when they work together rather than tearing each other down. People helping people. If that means she’s childish, then fine, because Ruby would rather be naïve and hopeful than surrender. 


End file.
